Monthly Archives: August 2008
Star Wars: Attack of the Vague
A review of the new movie “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” in my paper today said it was rated PG for “Sci-fi action throughout, brief language, momentary smoking.” I guess everyone knows that brief language means cussin’. But it reads to me like everyone uses short words, or short sentences, maybe. “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.” Or maybe it reads like there is a sentence or two of foreign language, or an alien one, like Ewok. “Yub yub. Aiieeee!”
So if it really means that someone says damn once or twice (It was Star Wars after all. Obi-Wan Kenobi isn’t going to drop an f-bomb) then say “brief foul language.” Or “occasional cursing.”
Or, if its so minor, leave it out entirely, as the New York Times does: “Star Wars: The Clone Wars is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for bloodless sci-fi mayhem.” I mean, are people really so sensitive that they will stay away from a movie because of brief language? (Not to mention momentary smoking. Horrors!)
I need to get a spear
I’m running errands today, so no real post. But I was looking at the blog’s stats, and I saw that someone found the site by searching for “how to spear halibut at night.”
This clearly came from my post on halibut. But I just thought it was a weird search, and weirder that some search engine pointed someone here.
Shameless nationalism
The word of the day is hubris (n. Presumption, orig. towards the gods; pride, excessive self-confidence).
This is in honor of the U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team, which beat the French team last night (this morning if you are in China) after a member of the French team said they would “smash” the Americans.
The Americans won in 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds, which was 0.08 seconds ahead of the French. The U.S. time broke the world record by 3.99 seconds, which is huge in swimming. It also gave Michael Phelps his second gold medal. He’s trying to win eight, which would set a record for the most in one Olympics.
From the L.A. Times:
Word had filtered over to the U.S. camp that the French team had been dismissive of the Americans’ chances in the relay. For 300 meters, well, Bernard, Frederick Bousquet and company were right.
“Bob (Bowman) had said that the French team was saying some stuff, talking a little bit of trash,” Phelps said. “It fired me up more than anything else. We were all fired up.”
The member of the French team who made the “smash” comment was Alain Bernard. He swam the last 100 meters of the relay against 32-year-old American Jason Lezak, and Bernard led most of the way. But Bernard lost it in the final strokes.
Bernard might be interested to know that a French equivalent to hubris is orgueil, which means “pride, arrogance,” according to About.com.
Exploring the end of the dictionary
In looking up zeugma Friday night, I came across another cool z word, zhoosh. According to the OED, that means:
Originally among homosexual men: to make more stylish or smart; to enliven, make more exciting. Usually with up.
Examples from the OED:
1977 Gay News 2-15 June 23/1 As feely homies..we would zhoosh our riahs, powder our eeks, climb into our bona new drag, don our batts and troll off to some bona bijou bar. 1988 N. BARTLETT Who was that Man? iv. 82 Mostly the words are dusted off and brought out when we wish to zhoosh up a conversation, to announce a particular delight in our queenly style. 1990 Gay Times Mar. 25/3 In 1815 the Prince had employed John Nash, architect of Regent’s Park, to zhoosh up his rather plain and classical farmhouse by the sea. 2005 Daily Tel. (Sydney) (Nexis) 16 Mar. 67 The Chinese print bag you are referring to has been a cool but economical way to ‘zhoosh up’ many an outfit.
The rise of the avatar
Aaron Britt, guest writing William Safire’s On Language column in the New York Times Magazine, explores the rise of the word avatar from its Hindu origins to its modern video-game usage.
He took my pie while I was eating it, so I smacked my lips and his face
One of the guys I work with introduced us to a new word last night: zeugma. It means a single word that is used in a sentence to refer to two different words but that applies to each of the words differently. He gave this example: I went fishing and I caught three trout and a cold.
According to the OED, zeugma is another word for syllepsis.
Not wordy, but interesting
New York Times columnist David Brooks, who I normally do not like, has a really interesting column today on how things like the iPhone and Kindle are becoming “the basis of good taste” as opposed to the art (music, books, movies, etc.) that you can consume with them.
Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel. The brain overshadows the mind. Design overshadows art.
Nothing to see here
No posts for Thursday, but I have an excuse for once. I am getting up at 7 a.m. to go judge a writing contest. That lasts till 3 p.m., but then I go to work at 5. Ugh.
And yes, I am highly qualified to judge writing. Those qualifications: I was available. Uh, and, yeah, that’s it. They didn’t ask questions. Probably a good thing.
Get out your thesaurus
A New York Times article today on the coup in Mauritania uses three different words for it: coup, ouster and putsch. Coup is of French origin, ouster is Anglo-Norman, and putsch is German, according to the American Heritage online dictionary. Now that’s diversity.
I don’t get why some writers feel the need to mix it up like that. There’s nothing wrong with repeating a word. The idea isn’t needed that many times in the article, and it’s distracting when a word like putsch suddenly appears halfway into and article that has been talking about a coup.
This is an early Web story. I wonder if the variation will persist to tomorrow’s printed paper.
Fishing for word origins
From mharrsch's Flickr photostream (http://flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01)
I came across a reference to halibut last night, and realized it was a funny-looking word.To the OED!
I figured it was some culture’s name for the “large flat fish (Hippoglossus vulgaris), abundant in the northern seas,” but it turns out this is the etymology:
[app. f. haly, HOLY + BUTT n.1 flat fish: cf. mod.Du. heilbot (in Kilian heylbot, eelbot), LG. heilbutt, heilige butt, Norse heilag-fiski, Sw. helgeflundra, Da. helleflynder i.e. holy flounder: supposed to be so called from being so commonly eaten on holy-days.]
The OED said butt, used in this sense, is a word of “obscure origin” that means a flat fish. So halibut means holy flat fish. Batman. (Sorry. I couldn’t help it.)
